Weak consumer confidence and intense competition has contributed to a 66 per cent fall in profit for the company behind Sunbeam appliances and Oates cleaning products.

GUD Holdings, which also operates the Dexion commercial storage business and Davey water products, made a net profit of $31.5 million in the year to June 30, down from $92.8 million in the previous year.

‘‘Sales in this business were down 11 per cent and this decline was the primary driver of lower profit result for the group as whole,’’ he said.

5:13pm on 24 Jul 2013

Here's how some of the blue chips performed today:

BHP: +0.7%

Rio: +1.6%

ANZ: +0.2%

CBA: +0.7%

NAB: +0.6%

Westpac: +0.9%

Woolies: flat

Wesfarmers: +0.5%

Telstra: +1%

4:32pm on 24 Jul 2013

Japan's Nikkei slipped 0.3 per cent, snapping a two-day rally, as investors took profits in recent gainers, but losses were limited by rises in Apple-related stocks after the iPhone maker posted robust sales.

Meanwhile, European stock index futures are pointing to a slightly higher open, on the back of the strong results from Apple and as investors bet European manufacturing and services PMI surveys due in the morning will show a slight improvement.

Futures for Euro STOXX 50, for the UK's FTSE 100, for Germany's DAX and for France's CAC were flat to up 0.2 per cent.

Wall Street futures are minimally higher.

4:18pm on 24 Jul 2013

The stock market has closed higher for a third straight session. The benchmark S&P/ASX200 rose 18.0 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 5035.1, while the broader Alll Ords gained 17.2 points, or 0.3 per cent, to 5021.8.

China is again at the heart of the news flow in Asia, and there’s further fodder for both the bears and bulls in the headlines today, although the fact the CSI 300 is down 2.1% shows one camp is clearly in control, IG's Chris Weston says:

The Chinese market is all over the place of late, which is a clear reflection of the diverging opinions, but also the ever-contradicting barrage of news flow from different officials and researchers. Yesterday we saw huge gains across Chinese stocks listed on the mainland and in Hong Kong, but today these names are being belted.

You can add Wang Jian’s (researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission’s China Society of Macroeconomics) to this list after he said Q4 growth may be less than 7% because of ‘big’ structural changes, while also adding that growth could be less than 6% in a ‘certain quarter’. We’ve also heard today that certain government agencies have been banned from constructing new buildings for five years, with the idea to use this money to develop the economy and improve public welfare.

Of course the big news has been around the terrible HSBC manufacturing PMI print, which at 47.8 was the lowest in eleven months. Forward indicators don’t look too flash either, but it’s important to remember the HSBC print looks at a sample survey of 400 companies; thus we feel this weak print needs to be complimented by the official print (August 1) which looks at around 3000 businesses.

However, while the survey sample is small, it focuses on smaller companies which are the life blood of China, and this print is certainly not good news and will keep a lid on any rallies in AUD, copper and other industrial metals.

3:48pm on 24 Jul 2013

More on CPI, but with a slightly different slant by Tim Colebatch:

Some wrecking ball that was! Australia’s first year with a carbon tax has ended with inflation so low that it was only the carbon tax that kept inflation from falling out of the Reserve Bank’s target range.

The Bureau of Statistics reports that in the year to June, consumer prices rose 2.4 per cent on the raw data, 2.3 per cent after seasonal adjustment, and 2.2 per cent on the trimmed mean measure, which strips out the biggest price rises and falls to define underlying inflation.

If you take out the September quarter – as the next set of inflation figures will – then inflation over the nine months to June was running at an annualised rate of just 1.3 per cent. Underlying inflation is tracking at 2 per cent.

And while the dollar has fallen in the past three months and petrol prices have jumped, it’s odds-on that the next measure of inflation and the trimmed mean will start with a 1.

That is low inflation by any measure. It shows the Coalition’s scare campaign against the carbon tax was just a scare campaign. And it sets no bar to the Reserve Bank board cutting interest rates early August if it believes the state of the economy warrants it.

3:34pm on 24 Jul 2013

Yes, Myer was a dud stock. But I want to suggest that, today, such a view is out of date, Motley Fool's Catherine Baab-Muguira says:

Forget, for a moment, what you think you know about Myer. Now, let me tell you about a pre-eminent Australian retailer with modest sales growth, best-in-class margins, a manageable debt load, and a store network that's just the right size.

Most importantly, the shares are relatively cheap, at less than 11 times earnings, and pay a dividend yield of 7.2 per cent, or more than 10 per cent when grossed up to include franking benefits.

From this perspective – looking at Myer's situation and valuation today – it's hard not to think that the shares will outperform the overall market in the next three to five years, and possibly beyond. The dividend alone will get investors the best part of the way to an average annual market return.

The Australian dollar has experienced some strong swings today on the back of CPI and Chinese manufacturing data, rising to as high as 93.19 US cents before falling to a day's low of 92.44 US cents, as we noted earlier.

The dollar was trading on a one-month high before the release of the Chinese manufacturing data, in what has been a bit of a resurgence as the US dollar weakens on softer-than-expected US economic data - in particular US housing data.

Soft US housing data this week has led to the US dollar weakening. It's also added to market expectations that a tapering of the Fed's stimulus programs may not take place as soon as had previously been anticipated.

The recent bounce in the Australian dollar has also been due in part to a rally in metals prices, including copper and iron ore.

Just two weeks ago, the Australian currency briefly slipped below 89.99 US cents.

3:00pm on 24 Jul 2013

There are some strong numbers out of China too: Huawei Technologies, the world's No.2 telecoms equipment maker, has posted a 10.8 per cent rise in first half sales to 113.8 billion yuan ($19.5 billion), a better pace of growth than some of its competitors.

That puts Huawei on track to achieve full-year growth of 10 per cent for its 2013 revenues, the Shenzhen-based company said in a brief statement.

McDonald's is using rising youth unemployment figures to help explain why fewer Australians are buying its burgers and fries - but unfortunately the numbers the company quotes aren't correct.

Addressing investors in the US, McDonald's global chief executive and president Don Thompson warned that lower levels of spending in Australia and cut-throat competition among fast-food chains in the region had slashed revenue for the company.

He told the mostly US audience that the economy in Australia had worsened since 2012 and is reported to have said that youth unemployment had hit more than 25 per cent.

"Australia is another one of those markets that at this point in time we see from their perspective you're seeing some softer – clearly a softer economy," Mr Thompson said during a presentation for McDonald's second-quarter earnings. "Youth unemployment in Australia is about 25.5 per cent. So they're facing something; unemployment for them has risen."

According to recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics there were 116,500 unemployed 15- to 19-year-olds, equating to 14.5 per cent of those in the labour force. The ABS reported the youth unemployment rate in May was 11.6 per cent.

Here's a round-up of more economists' takes on the second-quarter CPI data. As we have noted, the market's almost 50-50 on whether the RBA will ease again in August.

UBS chief economist Scott Haslem: CPI doesn't cement rate cut, but it's likely to be still low enough. While not the 0.4 per cent/05. per cent core result we were hoping for (and slightly above the RBA's forecast), given the recent rise in unemployment and softer data still flags a contained inflation outlook, if the Australian dollar is above 90 US cents when the RBA meets, we still expect a final 25 basis points cut.

Westpac senior economist Justin Smirk:Core inflation in the June quarter was a little higher than we had been looking for. However, we have always assessed that the trimmed mean is a more important measure of core inflation than the weighted median although the RBA has never acknowledged that point. The trimmed mean printed 0.5 per cent with an annual rate of 2.2 per cent; the weighted median is running at a 2.6 per cent annual pace. This number should not stand in the way of an RBA cut should the Bank agree with our view that the real economy is in need of further stimulus.

HSBC chief economist for Australia Paul Bloxham: This is at the bottom edge of the RBA's target band in quarterly terms and is low enough to allow the RBA to cut rates further if it deems that demand is weak enough to warrant further easing. Given low inflation and recent weakness in consumer and business sentiment as well as the rise in the unemployment rate to 5.7 per cent in June, we see the RBA as likely to cut its cash rate in August.

2:00pm on 24 Jul 2013

Staying on the topic of China, we take a quick look at its leadership and its struggle to send a consistent message to markets and the public about its approach on managing the economy.

In the past weeks, financial markets have gone through repeated spasms as investors puzzled over Beijing's intentions behind some of its actions, its appetite for reforms and tolerance for the economic pain that comes with them.

As President Xi Jinping was quoted in official media on yesterday emphasising the need to restructure the economy, other official media hinted the country's development agency was considering the traditional stimulus of investment.

With uncertainty over where the world's second-biggest economy is heading, clarity is essential.

"It's very important now given that talk about a China hard landing is resurfacing again," said Jackson Wong, Tanrich Securities' vice-president for equity sales in Hong Kong.

"If Beijing doesn't talk about their plans to cope with the slowing economy, investors' confidence will be even more adversely affected."

1:52pm on 24 Jul 2013

Here's some economists' views on the latest Chinese manufacturing data, which weakened further in July.

"The components suggest weakness in the domestic economy is intensifying, as a result of de-leveraging and still-tight monetary policy," Nomura economist Zhang Zhiwei said in a research note.

The fall in the index is in line with our view of growth momentum fading further in the coming quarters.

"The key thing now is confidence," Qu Hongbin, HSBC's chief China economist in Hong Kong, said on Bloomberg Television.

"The confidence now is pretty weak both in the financial market and the corporate sector."

BlackRock, the world's biggest fund manager, said Australia's dollar may drop as low as 80 US cents in the coming nine months after bets against the currency helped give one of its bond funds the nation's best returns.

The strategy profited as the Reserve Bank of Australia cut rates while US yields rose, said Stephen Miller, a managing director in Sydney at BlackRock, which oversees $US3.9 trillion globally.

Its Australian bond fund returned 3.4 per cent in the first half, beating 80 fixed-income funds Morningstar tracks. The Aussie's 11 pe rcent drop this year may spur the RBA to keep borrowing costs unchanged next month, Miller said.

“We prefer to be sellers of the Aussie dollar still,” he said yesterday in an interview. “Let's say that China's a soft landing, let's say the US recovers in a manner that I expect, I would have thought that you're probably looking at 80 cents at some stage in the next six to nine months.”

The extra yield Aussie 10-year notes offer over Treasuries shrank 34 basis points this year as a slowdown in Chinese growth weighs on Australia's prospects, while Federal Reserve policy makers say the US economy is strengthening.

BlackRock's Aussie forecast is more bearish than the median of 49 estimates compiled by Bloomberg for the currency to trade at 89 US cents by March 2014. Its rate call contrasts with swaps markets pricing a 62 per cent chance for an August 6 cut to 2.5 per cent.

1:24pm on 24 Jul 2013

If there aren't enough signs that Greeks are continuing to struggling amid tough economic reform measures, here's one more.

Just over a fifth of Greek employees and pensioners declared an annual income that put them below the poverty line in 2012, newspaper Ethnos reported yesterday.

Citing figures from the ministry of finance, the newspaper said 1.1 million out of 4.8 million workers and pensioners declared an annual income of less than 6000 euro ($7939).

This officially puts them below the poverty line - which stood at 7178 euro for a one-person household.

Overall, the average annual revenues declared by 4.8 million workers and pensioners reached 14,640 euro for 2012, down 17.8 per cent from 17,812 euro in 2011.

At the same time, average taxes rose by 52 per cent, from 1091 to 1654 euros.

The Commonwealth Bank has revealed it is looking at internalising the management of its three listed real estate investment trust as part of a strategic review of its property investments, our property editor Carolyn Cummins reports.

The three REITS, CFS Retail Fund, Commonwealth Property Office Fund and the Kiwi Income Property Trust, are managed externally by Colonial First State Wealth Asset Management, but have been under pressure with from the volatile share market and flat property sector.

The bank's property division has been estimated at about $20 billion, but the management rights would be worth a fraction of that amount.

1:04pm on 24 Jul 2013

Here's a good special report by journalist Tom Bergin in Reuters on US companies - particularly the big tech firms - and how they avoid paying tax.

According to a Reuters investigation of hundreds of corporate filings in dozens of countries, proposed changes by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) to regulations threaten tax structures "used by most of the big tech companies in the United States to shield tens of billions of dollars of income from taxes each year".

The OECD - a forum in which governments work together to agree how to solve economic problems - is grappling with one of the toughest problems in the global economy. National tax rules are out of date and failing to keep up with multinational companies which split their activities across different markets and base themselves in the lowest-tax jurisdictions.

Last week, the G20 group of countries backed an action plan drawn up by the OECD, which issues guidelines that most Western countries follow, to come up with ways to bring firms into the tax net.

A key area of concern is that the current laws on tax residency, known as the "permanent establishment" (PE) rules, allow firms such as Google to fix a tax base in a low-tax country - like Ireland - while generating lots of business in a country where tax rates are higher, like France.

Local shares have been knocked from two-month highs as signs of a further slowdown in China's manufacturing sector renewed concerns about the strength of demand in Australia's largest export market.

Materials are still leading the way, up 0.9 per cent, while financials have gained 0.3 per cent. Consumer discretionary stocks are down 0.7 per cent, while energy has lost 0.4 per cent.

﻿﻿﻿‘‘The ASX is up 5 per cent in the last four weeks, so a pull-back is likely,’’ says IG strategist Evan Lucas. ‘‘It will probably get a little bit lower - the main thing is we hold above 5000 points.’’